


purposely chase the hearts i know i'll never win

by Cirkne



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Pining, Polyamory, set in season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22687129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirkne/pseuds/Cirkne
Summary: He wants to pull her closer and make her tell him exactly what she sees in him, what she’s figured out in the weeks he’s been wrapped around her finger.
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 17
Kudos: 44





	purposely chase the hearts i know i'll never win

It’s not like Basira’s overly affectionate or obvious about them but she keeps touching Jonathan. Her hand on his shoulder, his lower back, his side as she walks past. Her leaning into his back as she sips on her coffee and he reads an article on his phone in her kitchen. They haven’t had sex, she hasn’t asked about it since he told her no the first time they ended up tipsy on her sofa but they sleep wrapped around each other and walk around half naked in her apartment. It’s as intimate as Jonathan’s been with anyone in years. 

He’s rusty at this- whatever this is. He doubts either of them would call it a relationship but it’s _something_. Sometimes she kisses him in public and it sends sparks through his body. Both of anxiety and excitement. Sometimes she pulls away when he reaches out to pull lint off of her clothes. She’s apologized for it but he finds he likes it better that way, anyway. It’s easier when he’s not the one making the decision to be affectionate. 

She makes him move away from her on her bed or wrap his arms around her as they watch TV. He’s pretty content either way. She knows enough to double check the door’s locked and the windows are closed the nights he stays over but not so much that the possibility of danger looms over their thoughts every time they’re together. 

Her hand on his knee on her sofa when she says:

“Your coworkers - are they off-limits?” 

He’s only half listening, eyes focused on an old text conversation between him and Martin. Sometimes he gets the urge to reread things like that, check the exact wording of Martin’s sentences. Something about it grounds him when he feels like he’s floating.

“Huh?” he goes because he’s not sure if they’re continuing a conversation from earlier.

“Am I allowed to go out with your coworkers?”

She knows about Martin. If there’s one thing he’s learned in the several unsuccessful relationships he’s managed to keep for more than a week is that the only thing he can bring is honesty and how and if they decide to take it will determine how long they will keep him, if at all. So she knows about Martin and sometimes, rarely, only once, really, he’s had his head in her lap, her hands in his hair, telling her about how stupidly, stubbornly, he can’t get over him.

“Who?” he asks to keep the conversation from floating away from him, though the answer, of course, is no. They’re not off limits. Maybe- maybe Elias is but he doubts Basira would be into Elias anyway. 

She gives him a look at that. He likes when she does it. She looks at him the exact way he expects a police officer who’s done with his shit to look at him. Something there like she knows exactly what he’s thinking and he wouldn’t like it from anyone else but oh he wants to kiss her when she does it. He wants to pull her closer and make her tell him exactly what she sees in him, what she’s figured out in the weeks he’s been wrapped around her finger. He wants her to _know_ him the way no one else in his life does. The parts of him that aren’t just the institute, aren’t just the scars on his body. 

He spends a moment too long to reply and she squeezes his knee, brings him back to reality, to her gaze on him. She’s become so good at that. She doesn’t even react when he zones out now, just pulls him back when she’s tired of waiting for the answer.

“I don’t get your taste in men,” he answers, truthfully. She rolls her eyes at him but she’s smiling. She struggles with keeping a serious face, she does, he wonders if the perps at her job feel the same way when they see amusement on her face. Like they’re doing something right. Like they want her to smile and smile and smile and never turn away from them.

“Right back at you, lover boy,” she tells him, way too pleased with herself, points at the text conversation he still has open. He locks his phone. 

He thinks about defending his attraction to Martin but he doubts anything he can say will make sense to her. He struggles explaining it to himself too, sometimes. Martin- Martin with his big eyes and stupid shirts and how he stands taller than Jonathan, yet manages to blend into the walls of the building. Martin with his cold skin and his soft voice and how he watches you like he’s trying to find something. Martin with everything- _everything_ thought out, Martin fixing his hair when it’s not even messy, Martin with mugs on mugs on mugs of tea, Martin with his stupid silence, Martin with rising annoyance in his voice that he hides, hides, hides. Martin convinced he doesn’t belong there. Martin accepting that he’s not built to be noticed, like Jonathan hasn’t been noticing, watching, thinking, obsessively rereading his texts, filing, recording, saving everything he says in his mind. Sticky notes on his findings that are never, _never_ useful and yet Jonathan reads them like Martin’s stupid handwriting holds the secrets to the universe.

Martin back in his apartment, alone, writing his awful poetry that is never about the things it should be. Never about Jonathan and the way he waits for Martin to finish every sentence, to look at him, god, not just bring him tea, to tell him about his life, about anything he’s thinking, not just ask for Jonathan’s opinions. 

“Jon,” Basira says. She never sounds soft or gentle when she does it but he feels it all the same. Careful. Something she’s had to learn for the job, he guesses. “You can tell me if he’s off-limits.”

“No,” he sighs. “Tim’s not off-limits, he’s-”

“Hot.”

“I was going to say pretentious,” he corrects and when he looks at her he catches a moment of fondness in her eyes that she blinks away, moves to press herself closer to him.

“I guess I have a type,” she tells him and he wants to jab her in the ribs for that but he’s not fifteen so he takes her hand off of his knee and into his and doesn’t tell her to shut up.

Later, she pulls away from kissing him to ask for Tim’s number and he does tell her to shut up that time but she laughs right before she leans back into him and it’s the most beautiful sound he’s heard in a while.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm only 52 episodes in but I would lay down my life for Basira and also polyamory rights because that's my only personality trait
> 
> title from knots by sliysl


End file.
